Wot I think about Mood

[Ken]

I have felt a lot of conflicting things about the mood of this game, I want it dark, but the violence should be over the top. I want weird people and cultures and strange and interesting choices. I want the world to seem hopeless, but beautiful. So after more thought than I would like to admit, this is what I would like the mood of Wasteland 2 to be like.

Act 1. Around the Ranger Base
When you start the game, the people you meet and the situations you see should reinforce the inevitable decline of man. People are dirty, selfish, desperate. The help you offer is inadequate, and could never be adequate. Mankind is reverting to their basest instincts, and will surely finish the job the apocalypse started. The player's successes should feel hollow and empty, and their failure inconsequential. Hopeless.

Act 2. California
Suddenly there is an opportunity. An opportunity to really make things better. An opportunity to create, build, and connect people. The people are weird, fearful of strangers, but hoping for something better. Some will need to be destroyed, some will need to be nourished. There is much that can be salvaged, so much to learn.
The earth is lush and beautiful, plants and animals have recovered. The earth doesn't need man, but it's not trying to destroy him.
You aren't fighting to save the world, the world is already destroyed. You are searching for technologies to improve life, for people who want a better way, for a place to rebuild civilization. You are fighting to remove the ugliness, selfishness, and pettiness that are impeding a new way of life. You are fighting to defend what you create.
What you are creating doesn't have to be "good". Maybe you want to be the god, maybe you want to conquer the world. Maybe you just want to make sure everyone has enough to eat, and aren't afraid they will die in their sleep. Maybe it should be a technological utopia. But it will bring order out of chaos. How far will you go? What terrible things will you need to do?

[paultakeda]

It's been over fifty years since the nuclear attack. Immediate death and starvation is no longer a concern as population levels have achieved parity with what the new environment can sustain (this is where the Fallout universe just plain gets it wrong). By the time of Wasteland, there is a nearby Ag Center with towering stalks of broccoli and other goodies, and you want people to be desperate?

... What?

Wasteland is a crazy kaleidoscope of colors. It is a wild, dangerous place on the cusp of social expansion by powerful cultural centers (Ranger Center being the dominant one in the AZ/NV/CA tri-state area). You are thinking of the period within ten years of a nuclear attack, when things were desperate and no one knew if survival was an option. Wasteland is nowhere close to that period; it's the wild west and runs the entire range of environments, from bleak and despairing wastes to bright and colorful camps and farms; from tattered dying villages with dried out wells where no one bothers to own a weapon to bountiful boom towns where walking out on the street can get you killed for wearing the wrong hat.

So you got half of it right, the beautiful, bizarre half. A failing Ranger Center and a hopeless outlook? No.

[Mandemon]

Then again, area where WL1 takes place was relatively spared from the bombs. The West, however, clearly got more heavily bombed, perhaps several dirty bombs? So it makes sense that western area might be less well-off and more desperate than original area.

To provide example, think about West Coast and East Coast from Fallout.

West coast had less nukes hitting it than East Coast. WC hsa already been able establish itself to several powerhouses, to several nations where concern is less day-to-day survival and more "Where from here?".

East Coast, however, got a lot more hits. Most likely neutron and dirty bombs, seeing how entire place is not just flat area. There life is harder and it's mainly raiders and such. When WC is at Fallout New Vegas level of civilization, EC has barely reached Fallout 1 level of civilization

[Ken]

1.) This is about mood, not setting. I have opinions about setting, but that involves more back story about what happened in the intervening decade from the previous game. Since there is no official back story for wasteland 2 it is premature to say that what I wrote is inappropriate.

2.) This is my opinion. Saying it's "wrong" is pointlessly argumentative. If you have an opinion I would love to hear it. Even more, I would love even more for the writers of the game to hear it. I want nothing more than to trigger an idea in someone who matters.

3.) If everything is going so great in the wasteland then the story is going to involve saving something. Aren't you tired of saving things? I would prefer not to have an overarching plot, and just explore, then to have to save the world again. I would rather have a story about creation and the struggle for a better life, what's wrong with that?

[paultakeda]

1.) This is about mood, not setting. I have opinions about setting, but that involves more back story about what happened in the intervening decade from the previous game. Since there is no official back story for wasteland 2 it is premature to say that what I wrote is inappropriate.

So you invalidate the first game even though this is a direct sequel? Ranger Center is the strongest outpost in the area; it sends out ranger teams to bring justice and as they go out and explore they find thriving towns, cities and other societies with advanced technology. Yes, this is setting, but it is a setting you directly contradict, stating that "people are dirty, selfish, desperate". That is not what the rangers found around Ranger Center; they thought that was the case but they were surprised to find that "life continues in the wasteland." If the first game and its manual are not official back story, you need to tell me why.

2.) This is my opinion. Saying it's "wrong" is pointlessly argumentative. If you have an opinion I would love to hear it.

You have an opinion. So do I. And while opinions have merit, I don't think an opinion about how the area around Ranger Center is desperate can hold any water if an entire game and its manual's introduction provide a mood (and setting) counter to that opinion.

3.) If everything is going so great in the wasteland then the story is going to involve saving something. Aren't you tired of saving things? I would prefer not to have an overarching plot, and just explore, then to have to save the world again. I would rather have a story about creation and the struggle for a better life, what's wrong with that?

WL2 is confirmed to start immediately after WL1. The area around Ranger Center is "pacified" (i.e. made ranger friendly). So, yes, everything is going great there. We also know that WL2 involves the Guardians, those fellows the rangers dealt with in the Citadel. The rangers view them as hostile, they get word of Guardians in California, the mission is to send a recon team over to see what's up.

That's the basic plot. Are you saving things? Are you struggling for a better life? These are philosophical questions you can put to yourself as your rangers explore California to investigate Guardian presence.

The game does not give you this, you provide it. Some will play as if they were creation's gift to man; others will play it like a military mission: there to do the job, hoo-rah; still others will probably go throughout California laying waste to all the people, bringing the "law" of Ranger Center to California. You play it as you want to. The only thing you are limited by is that you play rangers from Ranger Center. What sort? What mission? Up to you.

If that's mood to you then I tell you that mood is up to you.

[Maximous]

From history lessons, the outposts are probably going to be a bit like Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. Go out and explore a somewhat dingy world (free of Corporate McDonald's and Walmart's-at least ones that you can buy stuff from), and when you get your ass kicked, you double up your forces, and attack again. Along the way we'll find some cool stuff.

Mood is totally in your head. How many lines did Clint Eastwood speak in his spaghetti westerns, yet the mood was there-we kept going back for more of his movies. When you watch an opera in Italian or German, the characters convey a mood through their interactions with other characters around them.

It's easy to convey isolation, desperation-show a teddy bear next to a bombed out house. WL1 is still one of the greatest to set a mood. They would talk about bombed out building, or a scientist working in and underground sewer on a robot-just endless imaginative, descriptive situations.

[Ken]

paultakeda - You are absolutely right. I listened to the update #11 again and Mr. Faro did state that the events in wasteland 2 would happen "soon" after the events of the first game. I don't know why I thought there was a ten year gap, but that would be a very strange interpretation of "soon". So having a desperate world would not really make sense.

Will that's disappointing.

[paultakeda]

paultakeda - You are absolutely right. I listened to the update #11 again and Mr. Faro did state that the events in wasteland 2 would happen "soon" after the events of the first game. I don't know why I thought there was a ten year gap, but that would be a very strange interpretation of "soon". So having a desperate world would not really make sense.

Will that's disappointing.

No, no! Do not be disheartened. The great thing about the variety in Wasteland is that there will be areas that are desolate and filled with people in despair. I'm just saying it's not around Ranger Center, but that's fine, because we're going to California. We can find desperate souls over in Palm Springs.

[Ken]

paultakeda - You are absolutely right. I listened to the update #11 again and Mr. Faro did state that the events in wasteland 2 would happen "soon" after the events of the first game. I don't know why I thought there was a ten year gap, but that would be a very strange interpretation of "soon". So having a desperate world would not really make sense.

Will that's disappointing.

No, no! Do not be disheartened. The great thing about the variety in Wasteland is that there will be areas that are desolate and filled with people in despair. I'm just saying it's not around Ranger Center, but that's fine, because we're going to California. We can find desperate souls over in Palm Springs. :D

I appreciate the pep talk, and it did get me thinking in a different direction.. Maybe the opening story could be a terrible failure. Kill a bunch of children because of bad intel or something. Some ranger officials really know what happened, but they decide to scapegoat you to save face for the organization. So they secretly skip you off to California, but in NV you are wanted criminals. So the hopelessness and failure is personal, plus you are burdened with doing something terrible, and you can never go home again.

[paultakeda]

I appreciate the pep talk, and it did get me thinking in a different direction.. Maybe the opening story could be a terrible failure. Kill a bunch of children because of bad intel or something. Some ranger officials really know what happened, but they decide to scapegoat you to save face for the organization. So they secretly skip you off to California, but in NV you are wanted criminals. So the hopelessness and failure is personal, plus you are burdened with doing something terrible, and you can never go home again.

I find it ironic that my pep talk encouraged you to think in a direction that's such a downer in premise.

[Ken]

I appreciate the pep talk, and it did get me thinking in a different direction.. Maybe the opening story could be a terrible failure. Kill a bunch of children because of bad intel or something. Some ranger officials really know what happened, but they decide to scapegoat you to save face for the organization. So they secretly skip you off to California, but in NV you are wanted criminals. So the hopelessness and failure is personal, plus you are burdened with doing something terrible, and you can never go home again.

I find it ironic that my pep talk encouraged you to think in a direction that's such a downer in premise. :lol:

Well people are asking for mature themes and 80 references. So you get shame, guilt, and the A-team.

[paultakeda]

Well people are asking for mature themes and 80 references. So you get shame, guilt, and the A-team.

I'll buy that for a dollar.